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Dropping my LCS (long cathartic retelling)
Elsiebub
Posts: 338
Just thought I'd share recent developments in the always dramatic life of someone who just wants to be able to read good comics in a somewhat timely and reasonable manner, without dealing with a ton of frustration.
I live in a rural area and the nearest LCS is nearly an hour's drive away. It's part of a larger flea market complex and is managed by a husband and wife in their early 50s (basically, the comic shop is the husband's, whereas the wife is technically owner of the larger store, but the husband helps out with that too, when he's around).
I've been going there for about five years now, ever since I moved to the area. At the time I was really into Morrison's Batman, Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, and Final Crisis (sue me). It's a very small LCS, and usually -- even if I came in on a Wednesday -- I'd end up buying the last shelf copy of whatever I was interested in. So, naturally, I set up a pull list with the owner. For a while, this worked out fairly well, and I was able to arrange my schedule so that I had a few hours free on Wednesday during the day to drive to the LCS. I wasn't driving all that way just for comics. I was also doing grocery shopping, banking, etc. But "comics on Wednesday" was a definite draw, and the LCS owner knew how far I was driving to come to his shop.
Somewhere in here I should mention that about two years ago the owner switched things up and made new comics day Thursday instead of Wednesday. He said this was because UPS was changing their delivery schedule and wasn't coming to his shop until around closing time on Wednesday anyway. This was a bit annoying, but not a huge deal; I just switched my own personal "new comics day" to Thursday. Anyway, about a month ago I was in town anyway and just happened to go to the store about 5 minutes after it opened on a Wednesday. The owner wasn't there -- his wife was working -- but lo and behold what I saw on the back desk: a big box from UPS with a Diamond logo on it, unopened. So, the "UPS isn't coming until the end of the day on Wednesday" thing was just a total lie. The box obviously came late on Tuesday or really early on Wednesday, but the deal is that the owner is just too lazy to get the comics out on time. He normally doesn't wander in until 4pm on Wednesdays.
To back up, though, the first problems I ever encountered there were in summer of '09. Months in advance, I told the shop owner that I wanted to subscribe to the new Batman & Robin series. When I showed up to get #1, however, I had to get it off the shelf. Not a BIG deal, because there was a (ONE) shelf copy, but again I impressed upon the owner that I wanted to subscribe to this series. But I show up a month later, for issue #2, and there's not a copy of it in the store. Ditto for issue #3. All along, the owner's telling me that "copies are on the way", "yes you are subscribed", etc., but I end up having to buy copies of #2 and #3 from a mail-order place online. Eventually by issue #4, there's a copy at the shop... but it's on the shelf again. AGAIN I tell the guy that I want to SUBSCRIBE, and he gives me some line about "Oh, er, yes! I-I was just about to take it off the rack and put it in your slot before you walked in!"
I'm recounting this in meticulous detail, because I really can't forget it. I know a lot of you guys buy a LOT of comics every week, but for most of the last few years there have really only been ONE or TWO series at a time that I've REALLY cared about. And driving an HOUR to go to an LCS, only to find out that a meaningful comic you THOUGHT you had subscribed to months ago is NOT there waiting for you, when it's basically the ONLY comic you've been looking forward to for weeks and weeks -- that's a REAL letdown.
Anyway, this LCS was/is the only game in town -- the only game in the whole county, actually -- so over the last few years I've kept using it and gradually added more comics to my pull list. And GRADUALLY, again, these comics actually started showing up in my slot, though NEVER reliably.
The following experience became quite typical and happened to me about a dozen times in the last few years: I'll tell the owner three months ahead of time that I want to start subscribing to a series, but it will usually take him four or five months to actually get an issue in stock for me -- and that's only AFTER I remind him several times and after he assures me a few times over that I should be getting "NEXT month's" issue. Then when I finally start to get the series for a few months in a row, I'll think, "Okay, finally, at least I'm definitely getting it now" . . . but then randomly anywhere from 2 to 4 months in, the LCS owner won't get an issue in for me, randomly, and will seem baffled by this when I tell him that there are problems again. At that point, he'll usually tell me that he'll back order the missed issue . . . and then sometimes the issue will indeed show up a few weeks later... or sometimes it won't... and he never lets me know if he was actually able to successfully back order it or not, even when I ask again, because he obviously doesn't even remember if he tried to back order it or not. It's super-frustrating. Whenever he isn't there but his wife is, when I have these problems, she'll tell me, "Oh, [husband's name] always looks at the spreadsheet when he's filling the slots, and he ALWAYS just immediately back-orders things if they don't come in." This is just . . . not true.
I should probably mention here that I know Diamond itself isn't perfect. I know they make mistakes. But my LCS owner blames EVERYTHING on Diamond, for ridiculous reasons, even when HE clearly screwed something up or forgot to order something even after being reminded of it three times before. His standard line -- GET THIS! -- is that "Diamond hires people who can't speak English. So, of course, those people keep screwing things up." That's seriously what he says. I live in the Northeast. I know for a fact that the Diamond distribution center my LCS gets its comics from is only about two hours to the east of us. But he honestly expects me to believe that Mexicans are filling these orders?! Just to explain things a little better, I know for a fact that my LCS owner isn't some sort of "extremist racist Republican" caricature or whatever. He's actually very far to the Left, to an almost obnoxious extent. And what he says about this just makes no sense. Even if people who can't speak English were filling up these orders, surely they could just match up the titles on the comics with the titles of the order forms. I mean, I don't speak Spanish, but if you gave me a list of Spanish comic titles, I could match that up with the actual comics, just by looking at the way the actual words LOOK. I'd be able to do the same thing with Chinese or Japanese characters. I don't need to be able to read a language to be able to do this. But my LCS owner seems to think that whenever I don't get an issue, it's probably the fault of some Mexican whose 1,500 miles away from the actual distribution center.
He's also awful about email. I never know if he actually reads my emails or not, because he only responds to an order or subscription request about 10% of the time. On a few occasions, when I come in on Thursday after sending him an email on Saturday or whatever, I'll casually say to him, "You got my email, right? About [wanting to subscribe or wanting to cancel a series]? And he'll just sort of laugh and say that he hasn't had time to check his email, but, er, yeah, he THINKS he read it. Bizarre! And not very encouraging.
...continued...
I live in a rural area and the nearest LCS is nearly an hour's drive away. It's part of a larger flea market complex and is managed by a husband and wife in their early 50s (basically, the comic shop is the husband's, whereas the wife is technically owner of the larger store, but the husband helps out with that too, when he's around).
I've been going there for about five years now, ever since I moved to the area. At the time I was really into Morrison's Batman, Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, and Final Crisis (sue me). It's a very small LCS, and usually -- even if I came in on a Wednesday -- I'd end up buying the last shelf copy of whatever I was interested in. So, naturally, I set up a pull list with the owner. For a while, this worked out fairly well, and I was able to arrange my schedule so that I had a few hours free on Wednesday during the day to drive to the LCS. I wasn't driving all that way just for comics. I was also doing grocery shopping, banking, etc. But "comics on Wednesday" was a definite draw, and the LCS owner knew how far I was driving to come to his shop.
Somewhere in here I should mention that about two years ago the owner switched things up and made new comics day Thursday instead of Wednesday. He said this was because UPS was changing their delivery schedule and wasn't coming to his shop until around closing time on Wednesday anyway. This was a bit annoying, but not a huge deal; I just switched my own personal "new comics day" to Thursday. Anyway, about a month ago I was in town anyway and just happened to go to the store about 5 minutes after it opened on a Wednesday. The owner wasn't there -- his wife was working -- but lo and behold what I saw on the back desk: a big box from UPS with a Diamond logo on it, unopened. So, the "UPS isn't coming until the end of the day on Wednesday" thing was just a total lie. The box obviously came late on Tuesday or really early on Wednesday, but the deal is that the owner is just too lazy to get the comics out on time. He normally doesn't wander in until 4pm on Wednesdays.
To back up, though, the first problems I ever encountered there were in summer of '09. Months in advance, I told the shop owner that I wanted to subscribe to the new Batman & Robin series. When I showed up to get #1, however, I had to get it off the shelf. Not a BIG deal, because there was a (ONE) shelf copy, but again I impressed upon the owner that I wanted to subscribe to this series. But I show up a month later, for issue #2, and there's not a copy of it in the store. Ditto for issue #3. All along, the owner's telling me that "copies are on the way", "yes you are subscribed", etc., but I end up having to buy copies of #2 and #3 from a mail-order place online. Eventually by issue #4, there's a copy at the shop... but it's on the shelf again. AGAIN I tell the guy that I want to SUBSCRIBE, and he gives me some line about "Oh, er, yes! I-I was just about to take it off the rack and put it in your slot before you walked in!"
I'm recounting this in meticulous detail, because I really can't forget it. I know a lot of you guys buy a LOT of comics every week, but for most of the last few years there have really only been ONE or TWO series at a time that I've REALLY cared about. And driving an HOUR to go to an LCS, only to find out that a meaningful comic you THOUGHT you had subscribed to months ago is NOT there waiting for you, when it's basically the ONLY comic you've been looking forward to for weeks and weeks -- that's a REAL letdown.
Anyway, this LCS was/is the only game in town -- the only game in the whole county, actually -- so over the last few years I've kept using it and gradually added more comics to my pull list. And GRADUALLY, again, these comics actually started showing up in my slot, though NEVER reliably.
The following experience became quite typical and happened to me about a dozen times in the last few years: I'll tell the owner three months ahead of time that I want to start subscribing to a series, but it will usually take him four or five months to actually get an issue in stock for me -- and that's only AFTER I remind him several times and after he assures me a few times over that I should be getting "NEXT month's" issue. Then when I finally start to get the series for a few months in a row, I'll think, "Okay, finally, at least I'm definitely getting it now" . . . but then randomly anywhere from 2 to 4 months in, the LCS owner won't get an issue in for me, randomly, and will seem baffled by this when I tell him that there are problems again. At that point, he'll usually tell me that he'll back order the missed issue . . . and then sometimes the issue will indeed show up a few weeks later... or sometimes it won't... and he never lets me know if he was actually able to successfully back order it or not, even when I ask again, because he obviously doesn't even remember if he tried to back order it or not. It's super-frustrating. Whenever he isn't there but his wife is, when I have these problems, she'll tell me, "Oh, [husband's name] always looks at the spreadsheet when he's filling the slots, and he ALWAYS just immediately back-orders things if they don't come in." This is just . . . not true.
I should probably mention here that I know Diamond itself isn't perfect. I know they make mistakes. But my LCS owner blames EVERYTHING on Diamond, for ridiculous reasons, even when HE clearly screwed something up or forgot to order something even after being reminded of it three times before. His standard line -- GET THIS! -- is that "Diamond hires people who can't speak English. So, of course, those people keep screwing things up." That's seriously what he says. I live in the Northeast. I know for a fact that the Diamond distribution center my LCS gets its comics from is only about two hours to the east of us. But he honestly expects me to believe that Mexicans are filling these orders?! Just to explain things a little better, I know for a fact that my LCS owner isn't some sort of "extremist racist Republican" caricature or whatever. He's actually very far to the Left, to an almost obnoxious extent. And what he says about this just makes no sense. Even if people who can't speak English were filling up these orders, surely they could just match up the titles on the comics with the titles of the order forms. I mean, I don't speak Spanish, but if you gave me a list of Spanish comic titles, I could match that up with the actual comics, just by looking at the way the actual words LOOK. I'd be able to do the same thing with Chinese or Japanese characters. I don't need to be able to read a language to be able to do this. But my LCS owner seems to think that whenever I don't get an issue, it's probably the fault of some Mexican whose 1,500 miles away from the actual distribution center.
He's also awful about email. I never know if he actually reads my emails or not, because he only responds to an order or subscription request about 10% of the time. On a few occasions, when I come in on Thursday after sending him an email on Saturday or whatever, I'll casually say to him, "You got my email, right? About [wanting to subscribe or wanting to cancel a series]? And he'll just sort of laugh and say that he hasn't had time to check his email, but, er, yeah, he THINKS he read it. Bizarre! And not very encouraging.
...continued...
Comments
I should mention that throughout the years I've actually had comics I didn't ask for randomly inserted into my slot (not a pleasant metaphor; not a pleasant reality either). I always refuse to pay for them, and the owner takes them back to the shelf, but never seems to get it that I DON'T want him to assume, for example, that I want to buy #1 issues of random Batman series just because I've subscribed to ONE Batman series in the past. Sometimes he'll mutter something about "Oh ok, you don't want that? Just wanted to give you the option of buying it... Thought you might want it..."
Here's a perfect example of the dysfunction that will happen: This past spring, I sent my LCS owner an email saying that I DIDN'T want the "AU" tie-in issue of Wolverine & the X-Men. I actually told him, "I'm not interested in ANYTHING Age of Ultron." But what happens? Not only does he put the W&XM tie-in issue in my slot, but he puts Age of Ultron #1 in my slot as well! He acts confused when I tell him I don't want these. He said something about "Oh, well, you have to tell me in advance", and I told him, "Yes, I know. That's why I emailed you about it as soon as the news broke that there would be AU tie-ins." I emailed him about it before that month's Previews even came out! And why would he assume that I'd want AoU #1, when I've never bought a Marvel event? He didn't even have a shelf copy of that comic. But he puts one in my slot and acts confused when I don't want to buy it?
...continued...
Compounding the annoyance of all this kind of stuff is that, in real life... I'm not a jerk (really!), so I always DO feel bad when I have to tell the guy about some comic that I don't want to buy that's in my slot, or hound him to order me comics he should have ordered the previous three times I told him.
It makes me think about what Jamie D so eloquently said on a recent episode about comic readers being in an "abusive relationship". Yes, I know, what we go through isn't anywhere near as bad or as serious as what REAL abuse does to people, but the metaphor still works.
I have been EXHAUSTED by this experience. Getting comics should be fun. And I certainly put in enough work trying to let my LCS know which comics I want and which I don't. I don't email the guy constantly or anything like that, but about once a month or so I'll give him an update of anything I might want changed in my subscriptions. And I NEVER change things at the last minute, I always give him over two months' lead time. I provide him with the Diamond codes, for god's sake! But time and again, for years now, I'll be driving for almost an hour to this guy's shop, and to myself I'll end up thinking "I wonder which of my four or five comics won't be there this week? What will be in my slot that isn't supposed to be?" I'm setting myself up to ease the blow of annoyance and disappointment. I count it as a victory when at least the one comic I want most that week is actually there. On the rare week -- honestly, once a month, tops -- when everything comes in as it's supposed to, I'm thrilled like I won the lottery. It actually feels like getting the comics for FREE when I don't end up having to do extra work to correct my LCS's misordering.
The straw that broke the camel's back: How frustrating it's been to get some Marvel Now series from my LCS. Around CHRISTMAS I gave the owner lists of five series that I wanted him to start subscribing me to, and I told him that I realized I probably wouldn't start getting them until March, maybe. It took me until late April to actually start receiving issues on a somewhat reliable basis. But then last month I go into the shop and suddenly I have to get a ("the", "the only") copy of Uncanny X-Men off the shelf because the guy never bothered to put it in my slot. There's never even been shelf copies of this series there before! But he suddenly has one that he's going to put on the shelf, yet he doesn't think to ask himself, "Hm, that's odd. I don't usually order shelf copies of this series. Is this a subscriber's comic, perhaps?"?? And then, a few weeks later, I get Uncanny Avengers #8AU... but not the regular Uncanny Avengers #8.
So a little over a month ago I just told the guy (in another unreplied-to email) that, "Okay, I'm done with these $3.99 Marvel Now titles. Cancel my subscriptions. I realize that there are other issues on the way, in the pipeline, and that's fine. I'll buy the next two issues of each. After that, put any remaining copies on the rack, and if those don't sell to someone else, I'll buy them from you so you're not stuck with them."
...continued...
But I walk into my LCS yesterday afternoon, for the first time in three weeks, and the owner presents me with a backlog of like six Marvel Now comics, straight from my slot.
I told him, "Oh, you must not have read my email? I said to just put these on the shelf and--"
"No one buys comics from the shelf anymore," he snaps.
"Well, do you NEED me to buy these from you?"
"DO WHAT YOU THINK YOU NEED TO DO!" he tells me in a weird voice, then says something about "I used to have FIVE boxes of subscribers. Now I just have TWO."
(Weird statement, because I KNOW he's only had two short boxes for subscriptions for the five years that I've been going to the store. And he was only in business two years before that...)
At this point, I end up going back to the shelf and picking out a slightly discounted Brubaker Cap TPB and a $2 back issue, which equal the price of the Marvel Now comics he had incorrectly reserved for me, and I buy those instead. He doesn't seem to appreciate this gesture, but I do it anyway. He mutters some sadsack line about "No one cares about comics anymore. That's just something people cared about a long time ago."
On my drive home, I decided that I probably want to cancel at least the rest of my Marvel subscriptions (DD and Hawkeye) as well. (Nothing against Marvel; below you'll see that I'm actually getting these comics another way.) Up to this point, I had thought that it was good enough to just keep getting these $2.99 titles from my LCS; in part because they weren't as expensive, in part because they didn't ship as frequently, and in part because (much as I like the series) I don't really CARE about the characters as much. Dropping these two titles would leave me with only the following LCS subscriptions: Batman Inc, Batman '66, Wonder Woman, and Prophet. I like all these series (well, I expect to like Batman '66)...
...continued...
There's just no reason to keep up this "relationship". It's to the point where, anything I want or don't want, I don't know if it's going to show up in my slot or not. And letting him know that I do or don't want any given comic seems to have no effect on whether or not I actually get it. I can't think about any upcoming comic just in terms of content, I also have to factor in whether or not my LCS will actually, randomly get me the comic if I want it, or try to saddle me with it if I don't. A month ago I told my LCS owner that I DIDN'T want August's $5 Batman Inc Special . . . but for all I know he ordered me one and it will show up in my slot.
I like Wonder Woman and Prophet a lot, but at this point I could care less about reevaluating things in the fall, or trying to figure out when the best jumping off point would be or whatever. I'd rather just end EVERYTHING with my LCS now.
This morning I sent the owner an email telling him to cancel all my subscriptions, adding that I'd buy whatever issues were left in the Diamond order pipeline. I probably will, but if next time he gives me any crap or makes any weird passive-aggressive comments, I will drop my comics right next to the cash register and walk out never to return.
I really don't understand how someone can expect to run their business this way. For years now, I bent over backwards and did extra legwork to try to make this guy's job easier. In my emails to him, I always included Previews ordering codes. Not that that seemed to do much good in getting me the actual comics in a more reliable fashion. When I was cancelling series (which didn't happen much before this, btw), I'd always tell him well in advance. But time and again the guy always seemed totally incompetent, in a way that put way too much pressure on ME, the customer who WANTED to get comics from HIM, if he'd just do his job and let me, without an average of two errors every time I visited his shop.
Another example: Before Remender's Uncanny X-Force ended last year, I told my LCS owner four months in advance that I did NOT want to get the Marvel Now relaunch. But what happened in December and January? First I find Cable & X-Force #1 in my slot. Then I find the relaunched Uncanny X-Force #1 in my slot. Both times I had to tell the guy that I didn't want these $4 comics, and I had to remind him that I TOLD him this months and months in advance. Both times I had to assure him that, yes, it really WAS months and months and months in advance when I told him that I didn't want ANY follow-up relaunch to Remender's series. Both times I get a sad puppydog face from him, like I wounded him, and *I* end up walking away feeling bad.
...continued...
Another example: This is an LCS owner who already has a huge backlog of unsold trades and hardcovers... but then he'll get shipments in of like three copies of Marvel's rebranded Marvelman hardcovers, which reprint the '60s stuff that only 200 people in the wide whole world want to read. He seriously has a trade of the Capwolf storyline, on his shelf, for maybe 15% off cover price. It's been there forever, but it doesn't sell. So what does he do? He gets in MORE pre-Waid '90s Cap collections!
He has about twenty short-boxes of back issues, and if you look through them you'll see mostly random mid-90s Marvel issues... for $2 each. If you ran a comic shop in 2013, would you suddenly put out two identical copies of X-Men 2099 #8 (cover price $1.25) and put $2 price tags on them? These are NEWLY in-stock back issues that he bought somewhere. In what scenario would someone in 2013 randomly want the eighth issue of X-Men 2099 for almost double cover price? This is the kind of stuff he does. You somehow acquire multiple copies of Big Two '90s issues, and you're going to try and charge almost double cover price for them... then undoubtedly complain about your customer base when they don't sell? He has BOXES of speculation-era Big Two comics, all with $2 price tags on them. He never has back issue sales.
So... what am I doing now about my new comics?
Well, I'm going to get most of my DC and indie stuff from the LCS that's two towns over, an hour and a half away. I go to that area maybe once every two months, but the shop is good and the owner has always RELIABLY pulled random issues for me. He may as well get my money for WW, Prophet, and the odd Batman-related issue on a more regular basis now.
As for Marvel...
I'M SUBSCRIBING BY MAIL-ORDER, DIRECT FROM THE SOURCE, JUST LIKE I DID 15 YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS A KID.
And here's the thing...
I'M GOING TO BE PAYING UNDER $1.50 AN ISSUE.
Here's what you do. Get an account at ebates.com. Then go through Ebates' portal to magazines.com. They don't have every single Marvel series there for subscription, but they have the ones I want. They're all $29.99 for a 12-issue subscription, and at the moment you'll get 40% "cash back" by going there from Ebates. That's $17.99 for a Marvel subscription, and that goes for $3.99 titles as well. On top of that, Ebates will give you $5 back on your first purchase. So, yeah.
That's what I'm doing. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't live in the Northeast, near Marvel's own distribution center, because otherwise I think the comics would either come damaged in the mail or else take too long to get here. But... they don't. I got them alright 15 years ago, and a few days ago I got my first new issues in the mail this time, and they're in borderline NM condition.
I wouldn't have done this, either, if my LCS had been more reliable and less of an annoying, frustrating mess that never gets any better. I'd gladly have paid $4 for the magic of a great comic like Uncanny Avengers this Wednesday. I'm fine with that deal, but I'll end up getting it in the mail next week and paying less than $1.50 for it. I (used to) love the LCS experience and I like to help out small semi-local businesses! But... if you're never going to be able to get my subscriptions in reliably, if you're going to do the opposite of what I ask you to do ahead of time, and if you're going to push "new comics day" to Thursday just because you're so lazy that it takes you that long to get around to opening up the UPS box... then... F-U!
I'm done. Whew.
I kid! I kid! :)
You are a much nicer and loyal customer than I am. I wouldn't have put up with it for that long.
I also say you should check out DCBService.com. They are pretty tough to beat.
Just thought I'd mention I told similar, but different, tales on the old forums. Are they lost?
Being the only game in town (county), it seems like he would think he could get away with poor service... the internet will show him!
Off the top of my head, I can recall two used sci-fi/fantasy bookstores that I used to shop at that would get their new comics in, stack them on a table, and sometimes not even have them out for sale until Friday. And at one of them, the owner used to snap at people if they tried to buy them off the sorting table, because he said he hadn't gone through them yet.
And, yes, they both also ordered lots of stuff with no hope of selling, and would let it sit there for years. This one shop in the '80s kept ordering scripts for the TV series "V". Just photocopied scripts in binders, not actual published books. Started with one, which never sold, then eventually he had a whole shelf of them. He kept trying to get customers to buy them, at full price, and would get pissy when they'd say "no". He even stuck one in my stack once, as if I wasn't going to notice an extra $20 on my bill.
Like others have said, try DCBS. Even if the new shop is good, driving an hour and a half is really pushing it, in my opinion.
You will not be disappointed.
Yeah, I know. After writing all of that in a Word doc, I thought, "The CGS Board is going to think I'm a psycho." But it had just been boiling up inside for so long!
(No, my emails to my LCS guy were not long. Just "Please order me this, this, and this... DON'T order me that Annual even though I subscribe the series. Thanks.")
I was a loyal customer. I would hold off for so long on ordering missed issues online because, whenever I asked, the guy would tell me that anything missed was always "on the way". But more often than not the missed issues would never show up. Anyway, I gave the guy and his wife a Christmas card last year! Despite all his bumbling, I HAVE generally liked the guy as a person. But with all the continued errors, and the bad attitude last week, I just can't put up with it anymore.
Yeah, I was going to address this in my original posts, but... just didn't have it in me at the time. It's now nearly a week later, and my carpel tunnel has nearly healed, so I'll continue (but not for too long, I promise!).
DCBS would be a great solution. Except I only care about eight or nine series right now (two of which are ending soon), and I think the shipping costs on that would eat into whatever money I'd be saving, especially if I was going to get shipping more than once-a-month. And it would be tough for me to wait till the end of the month.
I do use Instocktrades and love them to death. If I subscribed to more monthly titles, then DCBS would be a no-brainer.
My subscriptions right from Marvel have been coming along fine, though. I got last week's Uncanny Avengers on Monday. It came in great condition. I had heard horror stories about direct subscriptions taking weeks if not months to get to people, and tales of the comics looking like they had been playing in heavy traffic. Maybe it's just because I live in the northeast or something, but in the '90s my Marvel subscriptions always worked out well, and they're working out well so far now. (My DC subscriptions in the '90s were a whole other story: much slower; comics in much worse condition.) And I'm not trying to shill for them, but the ebates -> magazines.com deal is just insane. Less than $1.50 an issue and no additional shipping costs.
Anyway, thanks for the comments, guys. And thanks for letting me vent!
And no one cares about comics? That's... mostly untrue. As a retailer, you have to SELL YOUR PRODUCT. Not put it out there and expect people to bang on your doors. Grant it, I probably get 1000 more walk-ins than this guy, but if you don't know what you're looking for, or you want me to recommend you something, I will do it. I will spend a good 3 - 5 minutes making decisions on what I think you'll like. I don't make any money on commissions, but if I did, I'd have a yacht or something by now. As the owner of a store, you have to be aggressively pushing your product. You're not Toys R' Us or Gamestop, you don't have a built-in audience. You have to grab as many as you can. YOU. THE RETAILER. Not the customer. It's not anyone's job to like something, it's the retailer's job to convince people to try something.